Zach Beauvais Online

I have come to the conclusion, after being without a car for five years, that travel by rail in the UK is just about the most infuriating process you can undertake on a regular basis. Every day, one of my 6 train journeys to or from work will fail in some way or other. Either there will be a delay, a last-minute platform change, a cancellation… something goes wrong.

Looking at the complexity of the rail network, it’s not surprising that it doesn’t always run exactly right. However, since I can pretty much guarantee that my train journey to work or back will be compromised in some way, I’m starting to wonder. There is no ‘normal’ service, you see. It’s a myth that the trains usually make it on time. Perhaps it is more than 50% of each leg of any given journey… maybe. But at some stage in every multi-sectioned journey I’ve had, some aspect of the trip fails.

II’m beginning to wonder what could possibly fix this situation. I’m told daily by an electronic voice: “I’m extremely sorry for the severe delay to this service.” I wonder what rail executives hope to achieve by creating an automated apology system? It’s not exactly like it’s a good value for money trade-off either. Train travel is bloody expensive, and it doesn’t work the majority of the time.

Maybe executive heads need to roll, maybe a huge infusion of public money needs injecting into the system, maybe… they need a change of perspective. If they measure every individual step in a day, they might come to the conclusion that they’ve failed n number of times.